


slow grenade

by zoyasnazyalensky



Category: Nikolai Series - Leigh Bardugo, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, it’s not the prettiest, zoya and nikolai have a history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:27:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27358015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoyasnazyalensky/pseuds/zoyasnazyalensky
Summary: There’s a long pause as she searches for the words to continue, but there are too many of them to decide between so she settles on the simplest— or perhaps the easiest, she doubts anything with Nikolai could ever be simple.  “Why not?”“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”“Try me.”or in an alternative universe, zoya and nikolai are college seniors rehashing the past theatrically (because that is the only way they know how to do anything)
Relationships: Nikolai Lantsov/Zoya Nazyalensky, Zoya Nazyalensky & Genya Safin
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	slow grenade

**Author's Note:**

> or nikolai tries to do a nice thing and zoya’s brain short circuits 
> 
> found this one in my drafts, hope you enjoy it!!

Stepping out into the cool night air felt like a punch in the face. It sobered her up almost immediately, sitting over the edge of what was probably Nikolai’s balcony, her fingers dancing over a copy of  The Great Gatsby that she  knew was his just by how worn out it was. The view from his veranda was beautiful. Illuminating the train tracks that lead out of town, the same ones she’d sometimes imagined following all the way to the end. 

“You’re missing out on all the fun,” a voice says, floating into the air from behind her. 

She waits for Nikolai to reach the edge of the balcony before she says, “I’m having plenty of fun right here, thank you. My head is still spinning.” He stands next to her, his shoulder pressing against hers and sharing his warmth. She glances over at him, his eyes a shining constellation that she can’t read. She doesn’t have to look at him to know that he is smiling, wide and genuine like he always does. 

“Do you need something?” The concern is clear in his voice, a flame she wants to reach out and touch. She hates him for it. For the half-worried look on his face and the trepidation in his movement. She hates him for the way he seemingly jumps between caring and not caring so easily. She shakes her head silently, and feels his body relax beside her. “Genya wanted me to tell you that David was taking her home.” 

Zoya rolls her eyes incredulously. “They were supposed to be my ride,” she says, dropping her shoulders as she wonders what could possibly have possessed Genya to leave her behind. Trying to come up with a reason for why Genya partakes in scheming so often is like searching for fool’s gold. It’s also the reason Zoya spent her entire freshman year on campus finding her roommate insufferable. “I suppose this was payback for earlier tonight then,” she says. “That stupid game.” 

“Speaking of which,” she hears Nikolai say over the fog of her mind. There’s no trace of the seriousness that was in his voice a moment ago, only a lightness that matches the halo the moon makes over his hair. “I never knew you had a  huge crush on me, Zoya? We could have put all those debate strategy sessions to  much better use.” Truth or dare, Tamar had asked her. She’d brazenly chosen truth and regretted it the second the question floated into the air. She’d felt her stomach lurch at the way he said her name. Another reason to hate him— the way that just the sound of her name from his lips could undo her. 

She scoffs, spinning her heels so that she was facing him now. “No one ever said  huge and no one ever said it was on  you .” 

“Why do you break my heart like this, Nazyalensky?” Nikolai asks, forcing her to turn away from him again. 

She wants to tell him something about the irony of him saying that after what she went through because of him. Instead she shrugs.“My head hurts too much to deal with your enormous ego.” She waits for a retort or a quip about her ruthlessness but when she looks at him all she gets is a smile, annoying and contagious and blindingly beautiful. She bites down on her bottom lip, working hard to fight back her own smile and Nikolai stirs beside her. 

“Be nice or I might change my mind about offering you a ride home,” he tells her, but his smile turns traitor, promises her that his threats are empty. 

She hesitates, searching her mind for a way to respond. She wasn’t expecting this from him. She wasn’t expecting anything from him, really, but on the list of things she was not expecting from him, offering her a ride home was right at the top. Zoya scoffs, tilting her head to the party behind them when she asks: “don’t you have a girl waiting for you somewhere in there?” 

He shakes his head firmly, singsongs a sharp “Nope,” and she has to fight back the slight shock and that stupid, stupid grin again. “You’re the only one getting any of my attention tonight.” She looks over at him and is unsurprised to find his lips tilted up in a satisfied smirk. 

“Lucky me,” she says unconvincingly, her voice dripping girlish sweetness like honey. Nikolai says something but she can’t hear him over the wind as it picks up and sends the pages of Nikolai’s forgotten book flying open. Her finger nails are turning blue from the fresh autumn air. Zoya digs them deeper into the pockets of her coat and— even after she realizes that trying to walk the four blocks home in this weather might be impossible— tells him, “I don’t mind walking home.” If there’s any conviction in the lie, it’s lost on her, but Zoya is nothing if not stubbornly prideful. 

Her shoulders relax, breath leaving her in a hasty sigh of relief when Nikolai assures her he doesn’t mind it. “I want to take you,” he says. 

There’s something in his voice... She tells herself that if it were a different night or if she were less drunk or if this didn’t look exactly like one of Genya’s schemes, she would say no. Tonight she says  okay and follows him to his car.

The drive to her apartment building is filled with tension and the sound of an old CD ricocheting back and forth in the player which Nikolai tells her is “devastated beyond repair.” Zoya just nods and turns back to the window she’d been staring out of. She feels his eyes on her every few moments, knows he’s been watching when he misses a speed bump or lingers a second too long after a traffic light turns green. It isn’t until hiscar pulls over outside her building that she finally allows herself to look back at him. 

Nikolai is looking at her differently— slowly searching her face so that she suddenly feels as if she’s been laid bare under a microscope. A beat passes and she gets an inkling of a thought. Maybe he’s looking at her the same way he has been all night but the cold air and the long drive have just now sobered her up enough to notice. She chases the thought, and the feeling it brings with it, from her mind with a pitchfork and a scorching torch.

Nikolai makes no move to get out of the car. He turns off the engine and runs a hand lazily through his hair. They’re parked under a streetlight that turns his features golden. Zoya wonders if he knows how beautiful he looks, if he knows how badly she wants to get out of this car before she does something incredibly stupid. 

“Why did you offer to bring me home?” she asks instead, swallowing dryly. 

“Why wouldn’t I?” The sound of his voice mixes in with the air coming through his open window. She breathes and examines the duality of it the softness in his voice paired with its conviction. 

Zoya shrugs. “Because you’re you,” she says, but it sounds like a question. Nikolai is staring out of his window and she finds herself hoping that he doesn’t turn to look at her. She sighs, “I don’t know. You’ve never done anything like this before? 

“That’s unfair.” She isn’t expecting the sharpness in his voice, the depths of green in his eyes as they meet hers. “You’ve never given me the chance to.” She feels her fist clench at her side. The girl she is now likes to think she could care less about Nikolai but there’s another one. Zoya in freshman year. Zoya who met a handsome stranger at a party and wound up in his bed. Zoya wanting to ask him to stay but seeing the way his eyes never really met hers. 

“That is not really a reason.” 

Nikolai sighs a heavy sigh, his head never falling, gracious as a king even though he’s still so young. “Then, I suppose... Because I care about you,” he says softly. He sounds so sincere that it takes her a moment to recover from his words, to realize that he’s watching her for a sign.

She stares back for a minute, blue meeting gold. She holds his gaze and searches for something to say, and then offers a grunt instead. “ Right .” She stretches it out, watching the confusion in his eyes. If he is a liar he‘s a very convincing one. She almost believes him. “ Saints , you must be really drunk if you’re saying things like that.” 

“I’m sober,” he sounds hurt when he says it.

“Well then. Maybe I’m too drunk and I’m hearing you wrong.” She must be because since they’d gotten into his car all she wanted was to move  closer . She resists the urge to reach out to him, and puts a cool hand to her forehead instead. Saints, she feels awful. This hangover is going to kill her in the morning. “Your words sound like jelly.” 

“Jelly doesn’t have a sound,” Nikolai says with a half smirk. 

“I’m just telling you what I heard!” 

“And what do you think you heard?” he says, low and sincere and she really wishes he would stop talking to her like this. As if she were someone important to him. 

She shakes her head, even as Nikolai’s eyes go looking for hers in the dark. “Nothing real.” 

There’s a cloud of breath and then, “Why don’t you believe me when I tell you that I’m a good guy? That I really do care about you, Zoya.” 

“Because I know you. I know your type. I’ve dated enough of them, slept with even more,” it comes out a bite and even in the dim light she can see a new shadow on his face. She chalks it up to her inebriation. If she lets herself see anything else. If she lets herself hear it out loud, lets her mind linger on the way his eyes seem to always follow her, not with the hunger she’d grown used to men watching her with but with something else altogether... She takes a breath and steels her nerves. 

He’s Nikolai, of course, and so he still won’t put it to rest. “And what exactly is my type?” 

She laughs, surprised by the question and yet her answer leaves her lips almost immediately: “Arrogant. Entitled. Spoilt. Handsome. Pretentious. Need I go on?” 

“You think I’m handsome?” 

She rolls her eyes, “Did you not hear the rest?” 

“You think I’m handsome.”

She crosses her arms in front of her chest. “I am drunk. You can’t take me at my word.” 

Nikolai’s smile only grows wider. And there goes her heart again, fluttering away as if it were setting itself on fire. “If it helps I think you’re incredibly handsome too.”

She knew he did, felt his eyes lingering on occasion and had always hoped... Honestly, she had no idea what she hoped for when it came to Nikolai. It was always as if she lost all control around him. She quirks a brow at him, hating the inkling of whatever she was feeling right now. She hastily extinguishes it when she realizes he’s still waiting for an answer. “Is that why you brought me home then?” she sighs. “Are you hoping to start up whatever the fuck we had going on before?” She doesn’t realize she‘s planning to say that it until she’s actually said it. Nikolai has never seemed to show any interest in her that wasn’t physical, so why should tonight be different? They’d done  this before, never actually putting a name to it. Friends with benefits implied they’d been friends at some point. What they had was too short lived to really mean anything except that it had to her. 

She sees the look on his face then, so clear and obvious and she wishes he would go back to being unreadable. He doesn’t. She regrets her question almost immediately. “ Saints, Zoya .“ She doesn’t think he should be allowed to say her name at all from now. Especially not like that. “I’m not a complete idiot. I believe I do have some redeeming qualities,” Nikolai says. He sounds hurt once again. All for nothing because she doesn’t even think she meant the question. They might not be friends or even acquaintances anymore but she knows him enough to know that he’s too noble to have ulterior motives. 

She opens her mouth to say something but any possible resolution is silenced by a vibrating noise coming from the dashboard in front of them. Their heads snap forward, realizing at the same time that the sound is coming from her phone. Nikolai tilts his head sideways to stare at the empty road outside the window. Zoya reads the text and then whispers into the darkness. “Genya wants to know if I’m okay,” she says with a scoff and Nikolai laughs beside her.

“Seems like she  does care then,” he says, his face unreadable again. Zoya smiles at him, as she stuffs her phone into her coat pocket. Nikolai finally opens his car door with a glorious laugh and one last glance towards her. “Who knew people could surprise you...” 

He is out of the car before she is, opening her door for her. Zoya bites back a groan at his chivalry. She liked it better when it was easy to hate him, when she only ever looked at him through the safety of distance. 

If she stared too long she might pull him in. He might let her. She still hasn’t decided which one she fears more. 

There’s a change in his movement. He’s more distant now, letting the cold air build a wall between them, no doubt as a result of the words she’d so harshly thrown at him. She regrets it now, regretted it instantly, even though this had been what she wanted from the first moment she laid eyes on him tonight. She wanted him to know that she didn’t care about him, that she didn’t want whatever he wanted anymore. So why does it now feel as if every molecule of air between them is painfully tugging on her heart? 

The door closes with a loud thud behind her and Nikolai watches her, his eyes still sparkling and—  hopeful ? She must be imagining it. “You really didn’t have to do all this,” she says finally.

“So you keep saying... But I wanted to.” The corners of Nikolai’s lips tilt to the sky. She feels herself mirroring him. If he  also feels his heart lurch, he doesn’t let on. 

“Well, Genya’s home,” she says. “Ican probably find my way up from here.” Even as she’s saying it she knows it’s not true, everything is still blurry from the absurd amount of alcohol she’d let Genya rope her into drinking. Still, she says it with conviction and if Nikolai can tell it’s a lie, he doesn’t say so. 

He nods, hands anxiously at his side and then in his hair and she can’t help but follow their trek with her eyes. “If that’s what you want.” Zoya nods, hugging her unbuttoned coat tightly around her frame. “Although, I don’t mind the walk.” 

There’s a long pause as she searches for the words to continue, but there are too many of them to decide between so she settles on the simplest— or perhaps the easiest, she doubts anything with Nikolai could ever be simple.“Why not?” 

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” 

“Try me.” 

The playfulness leaves his face like a breath of air. “I like being around you,” he says softly, the depth of it scaring her. “I like  you .” 

She stares at him for a moment. He looks different this light, under the moon without the guise of humor. “You hurt me,” she says, surprising them both. 

“I- what?” 

Zoya continues without meeting his eyes. “Freshman year. After our little tryst, I had the biggest crush on you, tried nearly everything to get you to see me, and...” she trails off, can feel him watching her so she puts a wall back up and looks at him. “It was humiliating.”  This is humiliating. She should’ve had another drink, or ten, before doing this, hopes the ground might crack underneath her feet, open up to swallow her. 

A moment of silence passes and then, sincerely, he says, “I’m sorry.” 

Zoya scoffs. The cold air has become too much for her, her entire body feels stuck in ice. “Why?” She doesn’t recognize her own voice. “You have nothing to apologize for. I’m the one who got attached to you, of all people.” Back then, the feeling had crept up on her, appeared in the middle of the night and took over. It had taken years and all the strength she had to finally get over it, shove her feelings for him into a box labeled ‘do not open. EVER.’ 

“Am I really such a monster in your eyes?” 

She doesn’t say anything and then shakes her head as they reach the door to her apartment building. “No,” she tells him quickly. “No you are not. That’s my entire problem.” 

He holds the door open for her silently, and then, once she’s inside: “You could’ve told me.” His voice is so soft and honey like she lets the words fill the air around her, drinks them in with their weight and their implications. 

“Honestly? I didn’t think you were interested in hearing it. I didn’t think it mattered.” 

“Of course it did, Zoya. If I had known...” 

“What would have been different? We couldn’t be in a relationship, Nikolai, we can’t stand each other. Half the time you don’t even see me.” She cuts in before he can finish that thought. She won’t let herself hear it out loud. And yet she still hopes, waits for the words to sing in the air. 

“I do. Most days, the way I see you is like lapis. Most days, you’re all I see,” he says in one hasty, fastened breath. The words taste sweeter than she imagine, still, but they’ll never be enough. She isn’t quite sure what to do with that information, her undoing. 

She thinks her mouth might be agape, her blue eyes widening, because Nikolai is looking at her with a boyish lopsided grin. Her heart flutters in her chest and she suffocates the feeling in an instant. She swallows, “ That , is because we’re standing in an empty street, Shakespeare.” Her attempt at an insult doesn’t mask the fact that there’s no bite to her voice, only the beginning of a smile playing at her lips. 

He smiles— a wave of sudden, drunken, happiness washing over, a tide pulling her in. “No, that’s not. From the moment you walked in tonight...  Saints , whenever you walk into any room— you’rethe only person in it I want to spend my time with.” 

He’s closer than she remembers him being and that’s terrifying and it’s lightning cracking under her fingertips so she does the only thing she can think to do. Her lips crash against his with something softly muttered, although it’s significance is lost to her, swallowed in instant, gone like it was never there. Nothing has ever existed before this. 

His lips were warm on hers. Everything about Nikolai has always been warm but his lips are like fire and she’s the kerosene. It clouds her senses and makes her dizzy, until all that’s left to feel is him. Her mind tries to resuscitate her, remember the coldair beating at her fingertips or the ground beneath her feet or the keys cold in her hand but all she can think of is Nikolai. Nikolai. Nikolai. Nikolai. His eyes in her vision. Hisscent of ocean flooding the air— he smells like the sea, and not some synthetic ocean breeze crap she could buy in a department store, he’d gone down with atlantis, swam across the ocean and now he was here, kissing her. His hands on her skin. He is everywhere. 

She’s only remotely aware that she should stop, that this is probably a bad idea but she can’t event think of stopping. Their weight against the glass door finally gives in and it swings open behind them and sends them tumbling into the building. Nikolai catches her in his arms with a smirk. “When I said I knew you were falling for me I hadn’t meant it this literally,” he laughs, and it sounds deadly. She finds her footing and keeps her hand wrapped in his, leading him up the staircase. 

“Keep up, Lantsov,” she says, opens her mouth to quip at his baffled expression in an attempt to silence her racing heart but Nikolai stops her short with another kiss. Just as desperate first, his hands touching her cheek, trailing down the side of her face and coming to rest at her collar bone. The gesture leaves her flashing red. She reaches for his hand and pulls him up the staircase behind her, muttering curses under her breath— at him for trying to kiss her even as they fumble up the winding stairs, at herself for not moving faster even though she feels like she’s been set alight, at her stupid, stupid landlord for sticking her with a third floor apartment. 

The climb is treacherous. When they finally reach her front door, before she can even pause to reach for her keys, Nikolai kisses her again, really kisses her, so hard she thinks she might completely come apart just from the force of it. It leaves her hungry for more, a drop of water after a drought. She miraculously finds her keys without pulling away from him and slides them into the door. Her back is arched against it, leaning in to Nikolai as his hands travel further South, toying with the waist band of her skirt. Her entire body is burned by him, on fire in ever place he’s touched. She almost can’t breathe. 

The door clicks open and they’re a hurricane, tumbling into her apartment. The hallway is dark but she can see his eyes and hear his voice although she can’t decipher what it is that he’s whispering. It sounds like music her heart is singing and her head... Her head is spinning so fast she can hardly breathe.

Nikolai has one hand around her waist, forever pulling her closer, the other under her shirt, tracing her skin like he’s hoping to memorize it right new in the darkness of her apartment’s empty hallway. It’s a wonder she’s been able to hold it together for soo long, thatshe hasn’t cried out— 

“Zoya is that you?” Zoya traces the voice to the living room, where she can see the faint glow of the television lighting up the dark. Nikolai pulls back slightly, still pressing her against the wall and making no move to leave. 

“Yeah,” she calls back to Genya. She swallows, clearing her throat when she sees him watching her amusedly. She offers him a death glare, sliding out of his grasp. She takes a sweet satisfaction in the look that flashes through his eyes when he realizes she’s managed to get free. Still, he follows her through the dark hallway just the same. “Yeah it’s me.”

Genya is seated nicely on the couch beside David, a blanket draped over them. Even through her sleepy eyes, Genya sounds relieved when she says “Good. Saints, I was getting worried you were-  Nikolai ?” 

Zoya tilts her head back, following Genya’s line of sight to the boy in question. She waits for him to say something but he stays silent. Instead, he waves a hand in greeting, a smirk plastered on his face that she wants to slap right off. As she drinks him in in the fresh light, she notices that the only trace of their kiss are his lips, red from her lipstick, and his shirt, messily buttoned or rebuttoned. She knows without looking that she looks a mess standing next to him. Nevermind that her heart is still racing or that her cheeks are flushed, she’s almost certain that her hair’s a mess and her shirts coming undone. One look at Genya and she can tell by the look on her face that she instantly knew what was happening. Poor David looks completely confused. 

“What are you doing here?” 

“Just walking my dear, Zoya, here home,” Zoya hears Nikolai say. His hand brushes against hers and she turns to glare before she realizes that he hasn’t stopped smiling yet. 

“We’re about to watch a movie if you two want to join us,” a voice says. The movie’s been paused and it only makes the room that much darker. Genya flickers on a light and Zoya finally glares at her. 

Before she has to insult Genya, though, Nikolai is parting his annoyingly gorgeous lips, still red from where her lipstick smudged, to say: “Oh, I’d love-“ 

“Actually, Nikolai was just telling me about this huge deadline he has coming up. He should probably get back to work,” Zoya says, interrupting him. She presses a hand to his chest, urging him out of the apartment slowly. 

Zoya watches Nikolai’s gaze trail between her hand against his shirt to her eyes. “Yeah I should go,” he nods. The two of them look back at Genya and David, who are now not even pretending that they’re not enjoying watching her squirm, and Zoya can feel a new warmth in her cheeks betraying her. 

“I’ll walk you out,” she offers, if only to delay Genya’s inevitable questions. That’s it, no other reason whatsoever. 

Zoya follows him out into the hall, her hands moving to fold in front of her chest as she searches for something to say, something they can talk about that to fill the freshly awkward silence. 

“So,” Nikolai says, and a smile escapes Zoya’s lips at the way his voice shakes as he says it, “are you going back to hating me now?” 

She quirks her lips to hide her grin. “Probably,” she says, and then, at the wounded puppy expression on his face: “No. I never hated you, Nikolai.” At that, he smiles and she has to fight harder to hide her smile. It doesn’t work. Instead, she surprises herself by kissing him again. 

He pulls back at some point, maybe hours later, maybe seconds. She feels dizzy and wandering when it’s over. When she looks at him he’s grinning so wide that she has to roll her eyes. Nikolai scoffs, “I see you’ve finally given in to my irresistible charm.” 

“I think you think  way too highly of yourself.” 

“Admit it,” he says, leaning in so that his lips brush against her ear. “You think highly of me too.” Before she can respond, he’s kissing her again, pressing her up against the door to her apartment. Her heart is racing and her fingers are gripping onto his as his free hand plays with the band of her shirt. 

Zoya bites down onto her bottom lip, pulling back reluctantly. “I should probably get back in there,”she tells him, but her hand won’t slip out of his because she doesn’t want it to just yet. 

“I’m sure Genya and David won’t mind you staying out here a little longer,” he says, and he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. 

Zoya holds back a loud laugh but she can tell by his expression that he knows she wants to and his smile widens. It makes her heart race. She tries to step away from him but he reaches for her hand again and pulls her back toward him again. 

“What?” She says, tries to sound she’s threatening even when she can feel her face betraying her. 

His hand moves up her arm, over her shoulder and onto her cheek where it comes to rest. “As lovely as this was,” he pauses, nods to her lips where he uses the back of his thumb to wipe a smear of red lipstick off. “This isn’t what I came here for tonight.”

She stares at him confused, then, but he’s still smiling and it’s so annoying and stunning that she can’t decide if she wants to curse him or kiss him. “I might call you tomorrow,” he says, softer. “To ask you out... on a  real date. Probably. Definitely.” 

Zoya nods, “you better.” 

“Don’t hang up on me, okay?” 

She doesn’t bother fighting the smile that time. “I’ll try my hardest,” she says, crosses her fingers over her heart. His gaze doesn’t soften. She lets out a small laugh, waits a beat. “Fine,” she scoffs then. “I won’t. Probably. Who knows, I might even say yes to the date.” 

He kisses her again and this time it takes everything she has to pull back. The look she fixes him with is half adoration, half irritation. “One more minute,” he pleas.

“ Goodnight , Lantsov,” she sings, finally making it back into the apartment. She turns back to catch one last glimpse of his smile, and then, before he can convince her to stay, she slams the door shut behind herself. 

The second it shuts she collapses against it even as she feels Genya’s wandering eyes on her, waiting for an explanation. She’ll deal with her in the morning. 


End file.
